Asylum
by Adeline Wrights Fanfiction
Summary: Madison is an orphan of dubious origin and humiliating peculiarity. When the Magisterium takes notice, Madison's life suddenly takes a sharp turn for the worse.


Madison's daemon had always been peculiar. She was female, for one – and it was rare indeed for person and daemon to share the same sex – and Violet was far too mundane a name for a daemon anyway.

The two of them held a secret, they did. Most ghastly of all her quirks, Violet could change shape to a person of her own sort. Madison knew the difference—knew anyone looking would understand it too. She knew Violet shouldn't be able to do that. It was unnatural, but there it was.

So Violet masqueraded as a vixen, or an albatross, or a grasshopper, and never showed her "human" side to anyone but her person.

Two secrets, then, for Madison and Violet liked her human form most. It was easiest to share affections with a hand to hold or lips to kiss.

The two loved each other more than anything, more than anyone.

They feared their coming of age and Violet's settling more than anything, more than anyone.

They knew what the future held for them. When finally the day came that Violet should lose her polymorphism, she would be a person, and there would be no more hiding their abominable sins.

Violet as a human was naked and beautiful in every way Madison could possibly desire. Many of these desires were steadily becoming known to them both. They indulged every whim and pleasure while keeping away from prying eyes, but they could not hide for much longer.

The Magisterium had already taken notice that an orphan of fifteen years had yet to settle her daemon. Church officials had already been calling upon the sisters of her orthodox nunnery in Munich, asking about the older children specifically.

The sisters knew nothing, despite Madison's growing recklessness, but upon overhearing a conversation one day and glimpsing a badge with the boldfaced letters CCD, Madison understood that her freedom was nearing its end.

A bark, a shout, and the officer's mastiff daemon caught her out in an instant.

"You." The imperious man commanded her with a single word to come forward.

Doing her best to look plain and uninteresting, Madison stepped out from her perch by the staircase. Sitting atop her shoulder, Violet stared vacantly with her black pigeon's eyes.

"Me, sir?" Madison asked.

The mastiff daemon growled at the pair and shrank back with a knowing mistrust.

"Your name," he grunted.

"Madison, sir."

His eyes narrowed. "Your full name."

"'Just Madison, sir. Don't have any other names."

A severe growl from the mastiff daemon made the girl reconsider her answer, but she stood as still and plain as she could manage.

"You," barked the mastiff, and in the same unyielding summons, she addressed Violet the pigeon.

Terror struck the two girls like a peal of thunder, causing Violet to flap her wings violently, shifting from bird to rodent to lizard and back again. She fell from Madison's shoulder and landed with a heavy thud as a human on the steps beside her.

"Shit," said Madison, realizing their immediate peril.

The sister shrieked, face drained off all its color. The man gagged. His daemon howled as Violet became a cat, coiled back on her haunches and ready to pounce.

There was but a second of tense stillness before Madison and Violet sprang for the hall. It seemed the officer was too stunned to move, but the mastiff was ready. It was over in a flash, Violet seized in the bitch's powerful jaws, being shaken down like a rag doll.

"Please, stop! You're hurting her!" All the fight had left Madison's bones. She was never much of a fighter, to begin with. Violet though, she hissed and snarled and scratched as the mastiff sank its teeth deeper into her flesh.

"Stop it!" Madison cried. "Stop, Violet. Please…" She was inconsolable, and at once Violet was a human, naked and bleeding and fierce as she kicked her leg away from the mastiff daemon and covered her person protectively.

The Officer of the Consistorial Court of Discipline drew his billy club and struck Madison across the skull.

Violet's gaze of vicious contempt was Madison's final memory before waking up in the sterile white hell of the Asylum for Ungodly Grotesques.


End file.
